


Recompense

by severinne



Series: The Wind and Its Satellite [2]
Category: Star Trek (XI)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-20
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:09:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/severinne/pseuds/severinne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy begins his new life at Starfleet Academy, and struggles to find his bearings with the Captain who recruited him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Of the paltry number of worldly momentos left to McCoy’s disgraced name, the three he held most irrationally dear had been passed to him by Captain Christopher Pike, all within the last six days. The most impersonal, and yet the most crucial, was the credit chip he had been given that night back in Georgia, chasing perhaps a little too close on the tail end of one of the most searing trysts of his life but indispensible to dragging him out from the deep end of self-pity and all the way to San Francisco, more or less in one piece.

The second was a bruise, already fading at the corner of his jaw where Pike’s thumb had held him too firmly for that first, frantic kiss. No one else ever noticed, especially beneath the unshaven beginnings of a beard, but McCoy touched it every night of his journey, winced as it faded day by day.

The third had come at the end of that journey, after he had stumbled – miraculously unscathed – from the innards of that tin death trap and towards a less certain doom, pressed on all sides by red-apple-crisp cadets and one bloodied boy with careless eyes but somehow in that dizzy march to registration, the Captain had found him and dragged him aside with such smooth efficiency that no one else so much as batted an eyelash.

For his part, his heart had hammered to near self-destruction at the clutch of those fingers on his arm, the hint of aftershave flitting at the air. He had at least tried to avoid batting his own foolish eyelashes.

‘Here.’ Pike had shoved a small slip of paper at McCoy – real paper, fine and crinkling in his fingers. ‘I’m not likely to have you in any of my classes,’ he had explained, unprompted, calculating blue eyes cautious over his shoulder. ‘I have an apartment in the city, off Academy grounds. If you ever wanted… well, it’s better than my office.’

Pike had coaxed him back towards the winding queue to registration before McCoy could muster any sort of reply to that presumption, so he had held his tongue and his libido firmly in check. He didn’t visit Pike that day, in his office or at the address scrawled on that bit of paper – real ink on real paper, but he couldn’t. He had enough sins to atone without racking up even more indiscretions, especially in these earliest days of the penance otherwise known as Starfleet Academy.

He had taken the full six days before boarding that shuttle to search his motives for this unanticipated new direction, and he knew he could only endure the Academy for the sake of his vocation, his need to practice medicine. Never again could he care enough to win the approval of someone who might discard him in the end.

This was for his own good, not for Christopher Pike.

McCoy knew he should have thrown the note away to dispel any temptations but he couldn’t bring himself to do that either, which was why he now sat at his pathetic built-in desk in his sterile hole of a dorm room, his fingers smoothing the creases from the paper like some heartsick teenager.

Damned regressive behaviour, that’s what this was. McCoy snatched his hand away from where it had been idly tracing the elongated shapes of Pike’s handwriting, and forced himself to his feet. He crossed the short distance to the small mirror mounted next to the narrow closet, and frowned as he scratched idly at the stubble already bristling over his recently shaved jaw. He had to admit that a few days of showers and squarely regimented meals had scraped some of the deathly grime from his appearance – _how_ Pike had deigned to kiss him that night was beyond him – but he was still nowhere near a good catch for anyone, least of all a confidently dashing starship captain.

And if he had lain sleepless last night in his narrow bunk replaying that bruising kiss and the full hardness of Pike’s body against his own, it was only loneliness that drove his imagination further. McCoy groaned his frustration, dropping his gaze from his bitter reflection. Hoping for more than a furtive grope behind a bar was nothing more than foolish, childish bullshit of the sort entertained by bright-eyed, bullshitting children.

‘Hey, Bones!’

Speak of the devil.

‘My name isn’t “Bones,” kid,’ McCoy growled, harsher than usual to cover the nervous haste with which he shoved Pike’s note into his pocket. ‘How many times have I got to tell you?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ll let you know when you’re getting close,’ Jim answered brightly, dropping his new uniforms at the door as it slid shut behind him. ‘If you last that long, old man.’

McCoy rolled his eyes, already immune to Jim Kirk’s easy, winning smile. ‘Not if I kill you first. And believe you me, I know how to make it look like an accident.’

‘Bet you say that to all the girls,’ Jim winked. ‘In fact, if you hurry up, you can try out that charming personality of yours on all sorts of freshly recruited ladies.’

‘What?’ He stared disbelievingly at his roommate – hell, he had a _roommate_ , which was still a shock in itself. Penance was exactly the right word for this madness. ‘I told you, Jim, no more campus bars. I don’t drink with infants.’

‘Not a campus bar.’ Jim pushed past him to check his hair in the closet mirror, adding a bit more of a post-coital rumple to his slight curls. ‘Academy mixer for new recruits. Remember? It was on our orientation schedules.’

‘Good God, no.’ McCoy crossed his arms. ‘No. Starfleet does _not_ get to dictate who I “mix” with. No.’

‘Actually, they do.’ His own preparations seemingly finished, Jim turned to McCoy with a narrowed eye. ‘Think I liked your hair better when we first met,’ he muttered, reaching out for McCoy’s carefully combed hair.

‘Damn it, Jim!’ He ducked, unsuccessfully, as Jim’s fingers laid waste to the long fringe carefully combed over his brow. ‘No, no, _no._ Starfleet can’t make me go to their damn party, and you do _not_ get to give me a makeover, got it?’

Jim took a step back to admire his handiwork with a lazy smirk. ‘There’s an open bar.’

‘I’ll get my coat.’

  


\+ + +

  


McCoy’s sole consolation was that Jim hadn’t lied about the open bar.

Sipping morosely at his third second-rate bourbon, he scanned the boisterous hall from his self-appointed corner, idly tracking Jim’s progress through the crowd and privately noting how damned adept the kid was at avoiding instructors, how craftily he engaged the more attractive women present. He knew now why the name Kirk had nagged at the back of his mind that first day, and he had no doubt that the Academy’s officers had not only picked up on the name, but were determined to not let Jim forget it. Poor bastard.

Projecting his tired pity on Jim felt better than letting it stew in his own chest, and it almost made him forget the slip of paper he was still unconsciously touching in his pants pocket until a familiar voice rolled in from over his shoulder.

‘Did you do something to your hair?’

McCoy spun on his heel, eyes no doubt bugging out of his skull in shock. ‘Captain,’ he rasped, his throat raw with drink and anxiety.

‘Christopher,’ Pike corrected again, mouth twitching pleasantly at the memory that was already chiming at the back of McCoy’s mind. And this time, he had to admit he could almost see the Christopher beneath the captain’s naturally authoritative presence. He had only ever seen Pike in his charcoal grey instructor’s uniform in their previous encounters, but he had dressed in deference to the enforced casualness of tonight’s event. His deep blue jacket hung open over a button-down shirt and beige slacks, relaxed yet finely fitted. Standing so close, McCoy couldn’t help but feel a bit shabby in his jeans and grey v-neck pullover, wishing that Jim had given him a minute to change clothes.

Not that there was much point in making an effort for the likes of Christopher Pike. Grunting a faint acknowledgement, he swirled his bourbon in sour hopes of improving its flavour and glanced back out to the crowd.

‘You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself, Doctor.’

‘I’ve already done the sloppy schoolboy routine once, Captain.’ McCoy resisted the man’s first name like it were a dangerous charm. ‘Not that I remember much of it, but I doubt it’s the sort of thing I’d do well to repeat.’

‘Guess it’s my loss, then, not having seen that the first time around.’ Pike’s smile was almost a leer. ‘The cocktail reception at Starfleet Medical next week might sit better with you,’ he added, sharp grin softening into kindness. ‘Smaller crowd, a bit more dignified.’

‘Black tie.’ McCoy frowned into his bourbon.

‘Beats dress uniforms. Trust me.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he retorted, keeping his eyes fixed downward. ‘Not going.’

He could feel the unasked question Pike was staring into him but because it went unasked he held his own peace and didn’t mention that he had only ever owned one decent suit that was no longer decent, not since his father’s burial. And even if that suit were in any presentable shape, well, the ex-wife had it now along with everything else in the house.

What Jocelyn wanted with an out-of-fashion men’s suit soaked in mud and rain with tears in the knees, he would never know.

‘You might want to rethink that one,’ Pike continued. ‘It’s a good opportunity to meet the higher-ups in Medical, make a good impression on all those Admirals–’

‘Yeah, well, washed-up and dirt-poor country doctors don’t make the best damned impressions anyway, so no huge–‘

‘Hey, Bones, you would not _believe_ … oh.’ Jim teetered to a stop, hand still clamped hard on McCoy’s shoulder as he took in the extent of his interruption. ‘Evening, Captain.’ The salute Jim threw Pike’s way was diminished somewhat by the unconventional use of his beer bottle in the gesture.

‘Cadet.’ Pike nodded back familiarly. ‘Enjoying yourself, I suppose?’

Jim dialed back his brilliant smile, shrugged dismissively. ‘A bit boring for a low-life repeat offender, but I’ll get over it.’

Grateful though he was for the interruption, McCoy’s eyebrow arched at Jim’s callous answer, the other hitching up to meet it when Pike merely smirked in response.

‘I’m sure you will,’ he agreed fondly. ‘You’ve got four years to get over it, after all.’

‘Uh-uh. Three.’ Jim held up the appropriate number of fingers, thank goodness. Not as drunk as he looked.

‘Only one cadet has completed the command track in three years, Kirk, and you’re looking at him.’ Pike’s tone was every bit as provocative as Jim’s. ‘Think you can really catch up with that, son?’

McCoy finished his drink to drown the anxious twist in his gut. He wasn’t entitled to that ugly whiff of jealousy curling at his already foul mood, and he immediately regretted how the taste brought him straight back to those six days at Dufresne’s bar, where steady cornflower-blue eyes had watched him self-destruct with no small amount of pity.

‘C’mon.’ McCoy grabbed his roommate’s arm just as he opened his pretty drunken mouth to reply to Pike’s dare, dragging him off before Jim said something he might regret.

Before McCoy said something he might regret.

  


\+ + +

  
‘Your new suit’s here.’

McCoy furrowed his eyebrows, sluggishly processing Jim’s bizarre greeting as he dragged his feet the ridiculously short distance from the door to his bed. ‘Huh?’

‘Hold on…’ Jim said slowly, his attention still riveted by the PADDs he was propping meticulously upright into an oversized parody of a house of cards. The tip of his tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth as he steadied another PADD on its edge, squinting hard at his work. The structure held for a moment, wobbled, tilted alarmingly, then crashed across Jim’s desk and onto the floor with an obnoxious clatter. ‘Shit,’ he cursed breezily, already pushing his chair back from the disaster. ‘New suit,’ he repeated. ‘For the Medical thing on Friday, right? One of the nursing candidates asked me to go, but then she said something about a tux and no way do I need some penguin suit to look good.’

‘Fucking farm boy philistine.’ McCoy dropped onto his unforgiving mattress, rubbed his eyes wearily. Not that his xenobiology lab had been remotely strenuous, but keeping his frustration and his tongue in check was proving exhausting work. ‘I didn’t order no damn suit,’ he added in a distant mumble, largely to remind himself of the fact.

‘Well, Willington’s Tailors thinks you did, and since I was awesome enough to sign for you, I think you owe me a show.’ Jim tossed the garment bag over the bed next to him. ‘Go on, try it on.’

McCoy’s head snapped around. _Willington’s?_ He knew that name, if only because Jocelyn had stockpiled the catalogues from their Atlanta location like an addict, constantly sighing over their ridiculous holo-spreads of elegantly frocked ladies draped all over pouting pretty boys and scowling whenever he insisted that no, his surgical resident’s wages couldn’t begin to cover so much as a scarf at their prices. He wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that all his life’s assets were now being converted into party dresses, but highly doubted that Jocelyn had thought to send him a new suit while she was at it.

Biting his lip with trepidation, he thumbed the fastening on the garment bag – molecular seal, nothing so crass as a zipper – and choked back a gasp as his hand brushed the suit stowed neatly inside. There was nothing synthetic about the fibres slipping beneath his fingertips like opulence woven into cloth.

‘This has to be a mistake.’ He carefully drew aside the edges of the garment bag, admiring the classic cut of the Western Revival frock coat laid inside, its rich black setting off the olive green ascot tie neatly stowed beneath the lapel, its pale tone gleaming in the faint light. There was no way this came from Jocelyn, it was far too traditional for her tastes. ‘They must have sent it to the wrong room…’

‘To the wrong Dr. Leonard H. McCoy?’ Jim waved the electronic transfer of the delivery notice under his nose. ‘What does the “H” stand for, anyway?’

‘Not telling.’ McCoy absently swatted his hand away and continued to stare suspiciously at the garment bag. Surely not…

‘I could go look it up myself, you know. Or you could try on the suit, and I’ll forget I ever asked.’

McCoy squinted up into the kid’s anticipatory grin. ‘Why the hell do you care?’

An evasive shrug. ‘M’bored?’

‘Fine.’ He scooped up the garment bag and stomped into the head. ‘But I’m not letting you watch.’

He changed carefully in the small washroom, mindful of each neatly pressed garment and increasingly unnerved at the flawless fit. The crisp white shirt sat comfortably across his wide shoulders, and the olive waistcoat buttoned flawlessly to his torso. His frown had given way to paranoia by the time he shrugged on the frock coat and fiddled with its buttons and lapels but everything about the fit was so obnoxiously _perfect_.

McCoy was still scrutinizing the line of his cuffs when the door whooshed open.

‘Wow, that’s hot.’

‘Damn it, Jim!’ He snapped his hands awkwardly down to his sides. ‘Learn to knock, would you?’

‘Why? You’re decent.’ His wide blue eyes tracked slowly down, then up again. ‘Well, so decent that it’s almost indecent. Shit, Bones, looking good.’

He glanced self-consciously over his shoulder at the small mirror above the sink. While nowhere near large enough to see the full effect, he was momentarily startled by the strangeness of his reflection, the lightness in his eyes brought out by the green of the ascot. As he stared, he also saw an embarrassed blush spreading across his cheeks, and hastily looked away, down at his socked feet.

‘I don’t think I have shoes for this damn thing,’ he muttered to himself.

‘Oh, I forgot…’ Jim dove out of the bathroom, and McCoy gawked in amazement as a pair of high-polished black dress boots tumbled in through the door. ‘They sent those, too,’ he called out.

Cautiously, McCoy picked one up and checked the size.

He let the boot drop and rubbed his aching brow. He wasn’t even going to bother trying them on, he decided peevishly. No doubt they were the perfect fit.

He caught his eye in the mirror. Well, _shit._

‘Guess Cinderella’s going to the damned ball,’ he drawled wearily.

  


\+ + +

  


No matter how many impeccably dressed men and women McCoy passed on his way to the Medical reception, he could not shake off the uncomfortable sense of being overdressed. He felt like an imposter, a child playacting from a costume chest, the memory of sudden poverty too close to the skin to make this fine suit sit quite right on his shoulders. His heart was pounding fit to break through his ribcage by the time he sighted the conference hall, and he cursed softly as he circled away from the crowded main entrance. If he could find a discrete side entrance he might be able to avoid the worst of the inevitable social awkwardness, perhaps stay long enough to give his regards – _just_ his regards, damn it – to Captain Pike before slipping out again.

He found a smaller doorway partway down the east wall, propped open to a narrow view of the ballroom inside. It would be the perfect means to slip in unnoticed, if only someone wasn’t already hovering there.

Well. Not just _someone_.

Captain Pike was pacing a short series of steps in the narrow slice of light flooding from the door, the heels of his shoes resounding a slow beat in the night. Like McCoy, he was wearing what appeared to be a neatly tailored black suit, though he wore it with an ease that bordered on a dashing sort of disdain, like a man who could have easily maintained his handsome elegance without any need for the finery. His open jacket caught the slight breeze when he turned on his heel every few steps, paused, took a drag off a contraband cigarette.

‘You know those things are disgustingly bad for you.’

Pike’s head swiveled around, the beginnings of a frown quickly flickering past some indecipherable pleasure towards an amused half-smirk. ‘And saying shit like that is going to make you the best doctor in that room, I’m sure.’

McCoy snorted derisively, dismissing the dubious praise with a roll of his eyes. ‘Anyone who can’t tell you that probably shouldn’t be in that room.’

‘You’d be surprised.’ The tip of Pike’s cigarette flared bright as he drew in another lungful of toxic smoke, the flame catching his pale eyes as they moved up and down with open assessment. ‘I knew that would look great on you.’

‘So this was your doing, then?’ McCoy gestured impatiently at his suit, still sullen over the tailored precision of the thing. Pike had probably hacked his measurements from his admittance records, the pervert.

‘Of course.’ He exhaled lazily, and McCoy’s jaw tightened with irritation for how damn attractive Pike made smoking look. That just wasn’t right at all.

‘That really wasn’t necessary,’ he protested instead, maybe a touch petulantly.

‘I’d say it was plenty necessary if the price of a new suit was all that was keeping you from showing up.’ Pike frowned down at his cigarette. ‘I’ve already told half the people in that room that you’re the best thing to sign on to the medical track in the last ten years, and I’ll be damned if you don’t get the chance to prove me right.’

McCoy matched the Captain’s introspective frown while he silently watched Pike take a last drag of his cigarette before carefully stamping out the flame against a pillar and dropping the butt end into a nearby recycler. ‘Do you buy evening wear for all your new recruits, then?’ he blurted out finally.

Even in the dim night, he could see Pike’s shoulders stiffen. ‘Come on,’ he said tersely, quickly buttoning his jacket. In a few quick gestures, the Captain’s casual relaxation had sharpened to a cool efficiency. ‘Time to turn on whatever charm you might have.’

Slightly chastened, knowing it had been ungrateful to ask, McCoy bit his tongue and followed him inside.

  


\+ + +

  


Later, he would say it had been the fine Betazoid wine that had eased his sour-edged insecurity. He seldom drank wine, but this particular vintage slipped smoothly down his throat and washed the prickly barbs of contempt away, cleared the way for the sort of easy conversation he hadn’t enjoyed since the days when hospitals had parried for his favour. His most successful breakthroughs had been new back then, but they were treated as legend here, and discussing the finer points of his research was every bit as intoxicating as the wine.

And maybe it was the gracefully self-assured ladies in attendance, with their fine gloves of Orion silk in the latest fashion, that brought out McCoy’s long-nascent manners. His smile grew soft on his lips, and he smoothly remembered the ease of bending at the waist and pressing a chaste kiss to the back of a woman’s hand, polite as his Mama has raised him.

Mama probably hadn’t raised him to make Starfleet’s Surgeon General stammer and blush, but it did the job. The quiet satisfaction in Pike’s gaze from across the room told him he was doing it right, whatever this was meant to achieve.

And Pike was no longer watching his progress from across the room, but appeared suddenly at his elbow, patience drawn into every lean line of his body save for his eyes, which flared bright with something too dangerous for this genteel setting. It was the sort of look that might have alarmed McCoy at a more anxious time, but he welcomed the attention now; among the unreadable waves cast about by all these strange doctors and officers, Pike felt like safe harbour in a storm.

‘I do hope you’ll excuse the interruption, Doctor. Doctor.’ He granted a polite nod to both McCoy and Dr. Nadiri, the glowingly intoxicated Chief of Psychology with whom he had been pleasantly swapping methodologies for the last little while – he wasn’t sure how long, in truth it wasn’t just Nadiri who was a bit drunk. ‘I wonder if I might be able to borrow McCoy here? Admiral Barnett seems to have arrived, and I think I’d best make an introduction.’

‘Oh, of course.’ Nadiri beamed fondly. ‘I understand, yes… he’s your recruit, after all, yes?’

Only by watching Pike closely did McCoy catch his soundless but sharp intake of breath before he answered. ‘Yes,’ he agreed softly. ‘Yes, he is.’

A familiar hand settled at the small of his back, and McCoy repressed a shiver of desire, settling himself into steady politeness. ‘If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,’ he said politely, ‘it was a pleasure making your acquaintance.’

Nadiri’s prim smile widened, but her reply was lost in the flutter of conversations around them as Pike cleanly guided him off across the ballroom. ‘Did you hear what Nadiri said back there?’ His hand dropped from McCoy’s back, though his low and secretive tone kept his attentions keenly focused.

McCoy frowned into his empty wine glass. ‘Actually, no,’ he admitted finally. ‘Gotta say, Captain, you dragged me off before I could hear it.’

‘No, no, before that.’ Pike leaned in closer, speaking in a whisper that heightened the rasp of alcohol in his own voice. ‘She said you were _mine._ ’

This time, there was no helping the instinctive shudder that rushed through his body at Pike’s earnest possessiveness, unearned though the privilege was. ‘Um…’ he cleared his throat, gazing helplessly around for a place to deposit his empty glass as Pike swept them towards the colonnaded parameter of the room. ‘Isn’t that Admiral Barnett way over there…?’

‘Probably.’

‘Then shouldn’t we - _mmph…_ ’

His wine-sodden reflexes could never have prepared for this, the quickness with which Pike hauled him into a darkened service corridor behind one of the wide columns and pulled him into a searing kiss. Pike’s tongue took all his words, turned them to breathless moans in McCoy’s mouth as he instinctively tilted his head into the sudden onslaught of sensation. He could taste the sweetness of wine on their lips, mingling with the smoky herbal strangeness of Pike’s cigarette and far from repelling him, McCoy found himself craving more of that flavour. He heard the distant shatter of his wine glass dropping to the floor but found he didn’t give a damn now that he could wend both hands into Pike’s hair, cradling his head and stroking the nape of his neck, utterly mindless of time or place until Pike pulled back with great effort, his breath gusting hot against McCoy’s lips.

‘You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that again,’ he rasped urgently, fingers clutching at McCoy’s lapels tight enough to crumple the fine cloth. ‘Ever since I saw you board the shuttle at Riverside… haven’t been able to think of anything else since…’

McCoy huffed a nervous breath, delirious with disbelief and unable to stop touching every expressive contour of Pike’s handsome face. ‘That fix it, then?’ he drawled, amazed that he managed to sound so much more confident than he felt.

‘No.’ Pike turned his head aside, caught the tip of McCoy’s thumb between his teeth and teased the texture of his fingerprint until McCoy moaned softly at the sight. ‘I want to taste you,’ he said, quietly fierce. ‘And I mean more than just that gorgeous mouth of yours.’

His blue-grey eyes burned with an intent that made McCoy want to look away with embarrassment for what his own eyes must be showing. ‘Captain…’

‘It’s Christopher.’

He gently drew McCoy’s hand away from his face, planted a chaste kiss on the runaway pulse of his wrist.

‘Come home with me.’

A stifled, inarticulate sound whined in the back of McCoy’s throat.

‘Come home with me,’ he repeated, slower and harder. ‘I would hate to spoil your fine reputation with any of the dirty things I want to do to you right now.’

Pike said it with a playful hint of a smile, but the words exploded McCoy’s awareness beyond the narrow space between them, made him remember where they were, and why. ‘Won’t they wonder if we just disappear?’ he asked cautiously, immediately wishing he hadn’t spoken at all. God _damn_ , what a thing to say at a time like this.

‘Let them wonder.’ Undeterred, Pike stepped in impossibly closer, brushed his mouth over McCoy’s ear. ‘They already respect you… walk away now, and they’ll fucking _crave_ you, maybe even as much as I do…’

He grunted his disbelief, a decidedly unsexy sound. ‘Yeah, right,’ he muttered, ducking his head to hide an unflattering blush.

‘Good point.’ Pike’s hand ran up the back of his thigh to brush the curve of his ass beneath the long frock coat. ‘They can’t possibly want you as much as I do right now.’

Teeth grazed enticingly over his throat, and McCoy bit back a moan, willing himself to not melt weakly into Pike’s hands but the other man was already withdrawing, had stepped past him with the most fleeting of touches across his chest, directing him to follow Pike’s stride towards the hidden side entrance. The light scarcely touched Pike anymore, shadows sweeping him up into a tempting silhouette by the half-open door.

‘You coming?’

  


\+ + +

  


‘ _Fuck._ ’ The back of his skull banged hard into the door, setting sparks alight on the insides of his closed eyelids, tiny flashes of trauma he would normally scrutinize in impeccable detail except that he just didn’t care, not with all his senses narrowed onto Christopher Pike’s mouth sliding tight around his cock.

A low chuckle vibrated around his flesh, and McCoy groaned deeply in response, dropped a needy hand into Pike’s sweat-curled hair. ‘Fuck,’ he repeated nonsensically, staring down through his own dazed shock. ‘Yes… oh, yeah, that’s… _oh…_ ’

Mischievous blue eyes flicked up at him as Pike drew back, lewdly slick lips quirked into a grin. ‘That’s what, Doctor?’ he asked coyly, thumbs drawing light circles on his hipbones beneath his barely unfastened pants. ‘Good, maybe?’

A breathless laugh huffed past McCoy’s parted lips. No other man could look so powerfully self-assured on his knees as Pike did at that moment, even with his suit jacket splayed off one shoulder and his shirt torn open at the collar. His tie had disappeared, though McCoy couldn’t remember what he had done with it after he had impatiently tugged it off during the cab ride to Pike’s apartment. What he did remember involved biting and licking his way along Pike’s warm throat, feeling the hoarse hum of Pike’s low moans beneath his lips, the answering grope of a skilled hand down between his legs.

They had tumbled into the apartment at a fevered pitch of arousal, disheveled and seething and too desperate to move further than the door that was the only thing holding McCoy upright now that Pike had wrapped a hand around his spit-slick length. His fingers held him steady while his tongue flicked delicately over the tip of his cock, gripping just tight enough to stave off the orgasm that already threatened to crash over him.

‘Please…’ His fingers tightened his Pike’s hair, the single reluctant word forced through clenched teeth.

‘Yes?’ McCoy groaned his frustration as Pike drew back completely once again. ‘You can’t possibly want to come yet… we’ve barely started…’

The hand still holding him took up a long, silken stroke that nearly undid him, regardless of Pike’s enticing threat. ‘Not gonna last that long,’ he panted, hips canting beyond his own control, rutting into Pike’s hand like a damn teenager. ‘I need… damn it, _please..._ ’

‘Fuck…’ Pike leaned in again, nuzzling his cock with complete abandon. ‘You have no idea how hot you sound right now…’ he whispered, and the quickness of his breath against McCoy sensitive flesh was too much and he nearly whined with relief when that mouth finally, _finally_ surrounded him again, suckling hard and wet and perfect, Pike taking him impossibly deep and fondling his balls, driving him fast to the edge. His thigh trembled under Pike’s other hand, his toes curled in his dress boots, and it was all he could do to not rip the captain’s hair out at the root when he came apart with a strangled groan of ecstasy, hips twitching mindlessly while his orgasm spasmed tight to the back of Pike’s throat.

Shaken and spent, McCoy slumped back against the door, rolling docilely into Pike’s hands as he slinked his way up his body, a feral grin stretching his exerted lips. ‘Better?’ he asked sweetly, raking a hand through his disheveled hair.

McCoy grinned sheepishly, loose and lazy and feeling unbelievably good, humming his pleasure when Pike closed in and claimed his mouth in a slow, filthy kiss. Beneath the sweetness of the Betazoid wine and the acrid burn of those illicit cigarettes on Pike’s tongue, McCoy could taste a heady musk that was clearly himself, intimate and undeniably arousing. He returned the kiss with a desiring moan beneath his breath, hands closing around Pike’s hips for much needed support. Pike pressed in closer at the touch, and McCoy’s breath stuttered at the full hardness of the other man’s erection imprinting its heat on his thigh.

‘So fucking beautiful when you come.’ The praise sighed soft against his lips, and McCoy felt the heat beneath his skin quicken to a deeper blush. ‘Gonna see it again tonight before I’m done with you,’ Pike promised fervently. ‘And I’m nowhere near done with you yet…’

His deeper, darker tone and the weight of his hard cock thrusting slow against McCoy’s thigh made Pike’s need plain to read. McCoy fumbled downward to find the fastening of Pike’s trousers, and was already sinking to his knees when Pike stopped him with a vice-like grip on his shoulders that forced him fully upright again. ‘No,’ he hissed, pinning him tight to the door. ‘No, not here. Not like this.’

Pike’s moist lips insinuated themselves into the hollow behind McCoy’s ear, licking and biting lightly down the column of his throat. ‘Said I wanted more than that lovely mouth of yours,’ he murmured, fingers tugging at the tidy knot of his ascot. ‘Want all of you… want you spread out under me… touch and feel every damn gorgeous inch of you…’

Even through his hypnotized haze of lust, McCoy understood. His chest felt too tight, unable to draw enough oxygen to fuel the moan he almost released when Pike drew him away from the door by the ends of his unfastened silk tie. They were stumbling across a wide space that he vaguely identified as a living area towards a narrow passage tucked alongside a modest kitchen, and if McCoy stalled them at several points along the way with a distracting combination of nuzzling and groping, it was of no consequence to their inevitable progress towards the next room.

It was Pike, however, who stopped them at the threshold with another kiss, their tongues sliding and tangling with obscene intent while his hands worked at peeling McCoy’s frock coat from his shoulders and down his arms. He distantly heard the tailored garment hit the floor, sounding low beneath Pike’s harshly growling breaths as he fought with the buttons on the waistcoat underneath. McCoy stared dumbly down his own heaving chest just in time to see Pike’s hands give the fabric a savage tug that split its seams and sent buttons tumbling away.

‘Think you just ruined that,’ he remarked breathlessly. Pike glanced up at the comment, only the slightest amusement breaking through the fierce desire darkening his eyes.

‘Fuck it,’ he snarled, stripping the waistcoat as efficiently as he had the coat. ‘I paid for it.’

No clever response came to McCoy’s suddenly numb mind as he was dragged deeper into the dark bedroom and pushed down onto a wide bed. Pike _had_ paid for the suit. No arguing with that.

Biting down on his lower lip, McCoy watched from his prone position on the bed as Pike undressed with efficient haste and not a shred of self-consciousness for his body, though McCoy could see, even in the shadowed room, that the man had nothing to be ashamed of in that department. His gaze remained fixated on the hardened musculature of Pike’s torso and arms as he mounted the wrought iron bed and crawled up the paralyzed length of his body, breathtakingly predatory and proud.

McCoy reached up for him, dragged him down into a heated kiss before he lost his nerve, nearly melting in relief to feel Pike’s strength soften beneath his hands. They fused together effortlessly, McCoy rolling upward as Pike sank down and he grew so absorbed in the flow of hands and lips that McCoy was stunned to feel cool air brushing his chest and stomach, his shirt already unbuttoned and splayed open.

He obediently arched upward as Pike’s coaxing, let him ease the shirt sleeves down his arms and fell back, silent while the other man turned his attention to the rest of his clothing. His tongue mapped McCoy’s body as he worked his way down, claiming his slowly bared flesh with slick lines of damp that cooled too quickly and set him shivering in their wake. By the time Pike drew off his boots and left him naked and wanting on the bed, the whispers of embarrassment began to creep back into the spaces left by the absence of Pike’s body. He swallowed tightly, tracking Pike’s silent movement around the bed to the low side table with fingers tangled tight in the bedcovers, unable to choke back an awful, anxious sound when Pike slid back onto the bed, eyes glinting as they swept over him. McCoy blushed, and looked away.

‘Shh…’ Soft kisses covered his chest, picked up the frantic pulse of his heart. ‘Easy… it’s alright, beautiful… let me take care of you…’

He scoffed nervously at the false flattery, glaring up at the ceiling. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he muttered, glancing back down in time to see Pike raise his eyebrows, incredulously amused.

‘You’re ruining my sweet nothings,’ he said dryly, and McCoy choked on an unexpected burst of laughter that turned to a strangled moan when Pike curled a hand around his dick. Impossibly, he was growing hard again already. ‘Don’t you want me to be sweet to you?’

Pike ducked his head and swirled his tongue around the tip of his awakening erection, still sensitive from his earlier orgasm. McCoy whined sharply, squirming helplessly.

‘Sorry, didn’t catch that.’ The fingers of Pike’s other hand slipped down behind his balls, teasing slick over his hole at the same moment that he took McCoy into his mouth, sucking him back to full arousal. A low groan ripped through his chest at the dual sensations, hands restless at his sides, thighs parting despite the razor edge of reluctance still holding him in check. His heart was racing, he registered vaguely, carrying the wine rapidly through his bloodstream, drowning inhibitions and relaxing muscle responses and – he gasped, arched his back – easing the throbbing ache of that first finger pushing inside.

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ he breathed, and from the sensation of Pike’s approving moan vibrating around his cock, he knew he was lost.

Hesitation burned away on the momentum of Pike’s lips and hands, pushing him faster forward until he was writhing on the fingers sliding wetly inside him, his face growing hot with lingering shame at his wanton neediness. He turned his face into the pillow, hopelessly trying to hide from Pike’s intent gaze even with the rest of his body splayed so open and vulnerable on the bed. He groaned in relief at the returning heat of Pike’s body hovering over him again but there was also a hand hitched at the back of his thigh and he was being spread wider and _oh_ –

‘Oh… oh, God…’

‘Open your eyes.’ Pike’s voice was tight, strained with the effort of holding himself _just there_. McCoy sucked in a harsh breath, flexed his hips experimentally, and Pike groaned raggedly above him. ‘ _Fuck_ … c’mon, just… look at me, please…’

He blinked upward, staring into Pike’s lust-blown eyes and holding his gaze for all he was worth, right up until Pike _moved_ and he was filled up and torn apart all at once. McCoy’s body arched into the shape of his cock sliding inside, his head rolling back with an impossibly wrenching sound. The reflexive movement exposed his throat, and his sharp cry trailed off to a stuttered moan when Pike dove down upon him, sucking and biting at his neck in muted counterpoint to the unbearably exquisite stretch bearing upon him.

Fingers stroked the side of his face, a thumb slid past his parted lips and McCoy bit down gratefully but he needed something more to anchor his senses, needed to hold onto Pike with everything he had. His hands scrambled with the desperation of a man clinging to the edge of a cliff, gripping feverishly to Pike’s shoulders and back and feeling the full force of every powerful thrust move beneath his fingers. He dug in harder, clawed with blunt fingernails, shivered when Pike growled above him, teeth grazing his shoulder.

Pike pushed up from his neck and took his mouth instead, fucking his tongue sloppily in and around McCoy’s lips, lapping up his sudden whimper when the shifted angle of his body brushed Pike’s cock up against his prostate. A smile stretched Pike’s mouth against his own, and the glint in his eye turned feral when he braced himself up on his arms and thrust again at the same spot. McCoy moaned; Pike purred in triumph.

‘So fucking gorgeous,’ he panted, hips working at a frenetic pace that took nothing of the precision from Pike’s piercing cock. McCoy whined sharply at the ruthless stimulation, shaking and unresisting when Pike took one of his hands and dragged it down between their bodies.

‘Feel how hard you are again?’ Their entangled fingers covered the blood-engorged heat of his cock, pressing its length down against his sweat-soaked abdomen. ‘Fuck… so hot, go on, touch yourself for me…’

The stimulation was too much, his fingers too overwrought to be of any good at all but Pike kept his own hand firmly in place, used his own strength to stroke his cock in sloppy counterpoint to their fuck. Pike’s hips were slowing, all his attention riveted on their joined hands, his breath gusting in hot gales almost as loud as the obscene little moans being forced from McCoy’s body at every thrust. Every pass of their fingers over his throbbing dick made him cry out louder for the release that clawed beneath his flesh, too stupid to realize it was too soon because he was already coming again with a few weak spurts that mocked the harsh intensity clenching through every muscle in his body.

He was hollowed out, blissfully blank and physically shattered, shuddering through the ongoing stimulation to his prostate until the flood of being filled and the deep groan of Pike’s orgasm swept him into blackness.

  


\+ + +

  


Awareness crept slowly back upon him, riding a shivering quake of pleasure that seemed to encompass the full breadth of his skin, something sensual and safe that made him stretch and moan his way towards consciousness. An answering hum vibrated against his hipbone, and his eyes snapped open.

‘Welcome back, beautiful.’

Pike flashed him a pleased smile before returning his attention to McCoy’s hip, lapping at what he now realized was a trace of his own semen. Blushing furiously, he also registered the cool moisture slaking his overheated skin as the traces of Pike’s tongue licking him clean, over his abdomen and thighs and – he sucked in a shaky gasp – places far more intimate that made him suddenly grateful to have blacked out for a while there.

He swallowed nervously as Pike trailed open-mouthed kisses up his chest and licked over his jaw and into his mouth. Nothing in him could resist the way the man kissed, no matter where that sinful tongue had been; on the contrary, the very idea sent a traitorous jolt of arousal through his spine and made him return the kiss with unseemly fervour. Pike moaned happily back, gradually easing away with light pecks and licks at his lips that had McCoy arching up to meet every one until Pike pulled away with a fond sweep of his hand through McCoy’s hair and slid out of the bed.

Peering out through lowered eyelids, McCoy watched Pike disappear into the adjoining bathroom, absently appreciating the sight of his remarkably well-kept body even as his lips tingled with the loss of those kisses and apprehension hammered at the back of his brain. Was he just supposed to lie here like the well-fucked mess he was? Or did Pike expect him to be out of bed, fully dressed and awaiting inspection at the door by the time he returned from the bathroom? No doubt Starfleet had protocols for this sort of thing, and he cringed into the spoiled sheets as he realized just how far out of his depth he truly was.

Before he could decide, Pike was already slipping back into bed, bearing a satisfied smile that at least assured McCoy that he hadn’t been expected to leave immediately. He stole a soft kiss from his lips as he tugged the sheets up to lightly cover them both, a gentle and wordless greeting that did nothing to ease the panic crawling beneath McCoy’s sensitive skin.

‘Hmmm…’ Pike curled languidly alongside his body, a proprietary hand skimming his torso beneath the sheet. ‘Leonard…’ His hand stilled, a frown creasing the lines around his mouth. ‘It doesn’t suit you, you know.’

McCoy frowned back, unsure of the appropriate response. He wasn’t about to apologize for his damn name.

‘Leonard…’ He said it slower, as though taking the syllables for a test flight. The tips of his fingers tripped over his sternum, tapping out points of skin in a seemingly random pattern. ‘Leo…’ Pike murmured, tasting the shortened form with even slower consideration. ‘Denebola… Leonis…’ His voice descended to a murmur as he resumed his tapping, and McCoy raised an incredulous eyebrow as he realized that Pike was mapping the constellation on his body. ‘Wolf 359,’ he finished, brushing the lower protrusion of his ribcage with a small, satisfied smile. ‘One of the closest stars to home.’ His fingers splayed out across his chest, covering the flesh he had just mapped out in stars. ‘Leo,’ he concluded with a nod. ‘The lion. That’s much better.’

Struck speechless, McCoy stared at the ceiling. He was Leonard to his mama, used to be Lenny to his father, a fond name that Jocelyn had cut down to a sharp Len back when she used to call him anything at all. Aside from Jim’s ridiculous taste in nicknames, everyone else dealt solely in his surname, which suited McCoy fine for all that so few of his colleagues ever got close enough to make it seem too formal.

Leo… was new. Not a name anyone had thought to give him before, one that seemed to carry a whole new possibility on its shoulders.

‘Penny for your thoughts.’

McCoy rolled his head sideways, gave Pike an incredulous look. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve actually got a real penny.’

‘Well, no,’ Pike admitted dryly. ‘Cred chip for your thoughts?’

‘Is that what you’re buying? Here I thought that was for my body.’

The retort slipped out unthinkingly, heavy with bitterness. He already regretted the words, and could only look away when Pike pulled back, eyes narrowed and mouth tight.

‘Is that what you think this is about?’

McCoy hesitated long enough to choke down the defiant _Yes_ at the tip of his tongue. He couldn’t imagine what else could be motivating Pike in this, but there was a hint of hurt in his question that picked at the back of his mind. ‘Can you honestly tell me I’m wrong?’ he finally asked quietly.

‘You’re damn right I can.’ Pike pushed upright, hovering on one stiffly braced arm. ‘What the hell do you think I am, McCoy?’

He flinched, hating that he was still bare-assed naked and on his back in Pike’s bed while having this conversation. ‘You gave me money,’ he explained shortly, body tense against the mattress. ‘You dressed me up and paraded me around that party like a damn debutante…’

‘I did that _for you_.’ A painful grimace twisted Pike’s mouth, then he looked away with a soft, bitter laugh. ‘This is bullshit,’ he growled, almost to himself. ‘What makes you think I want to be your fucking daddy?’

It was a poor choice of phrase. McCoy scowled and knocked Pike aside as he sat up. ‘How dare you,’ he seethed, heart racing and throat closing tight. ‘I don’t need you or anyone else pretending to be my _daddy_ , you bastard. He… you…’ His breath was gasping too fast, and McCoy forced his jaw to clench shut, struggling to get a damn hold of himself already. This really wasn’t about that, and he wasn’t about to profane his father’s memory by dragging him into this Starfleet Captain’s sordid bedroom. With a sharp, wordless noise of disgust, McCoy swung his legs out of the bed, fingers clawing the sheets as he glared at the mess of his suit on the floor.

But not _his_ suit. He started shaking, a cold mirthless laugh threatening to bubble out of his throat.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Pike said plainly, and that mad little chuckle escaped McCoy’s lips at last. ‘Damn it, McCoy, I mean that,’ he added sharply. ‘I didn’t bring you back here because I thought you needed coddling.’

‘I don’t,’ he snarled, scrubbing a hand over his mouth, remembering with a fresh flush of shame the tenderness of Pike’s words and touch, like he was handling spun glass or some shit. ‘Though you’ve got a funny way of showing it. Don’t know what you call that if it ain’t _coddling_.’

He dared to glare back over his shoulder as he spat out the accusation, but was unprepared for the stricken silence of Pike’s expression, hell, of his entire body. Though still propped up awkwardly on one arm, he looked unprepared to move any further, his lips slightly parted as though about to speak words that refused to come. His usually direct eyes were unfathomably blank, muted almost grey in the darkness.

‘I…’ Pike closed his eyes, then gave his head a strange little shake before looking up again. ‘You don’t have to stay. If you’d rather not.’

McCoy flinched slightly, but refused to misinterpret the sharpened determination in Pike’s gaze. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed hoarsely. ‘Yeah, I should go.’

He had to swallow down the hard lump stuck in his throat before he could move from the bed, hating himself as he put on the pieces of his ill-gotten suit but hating the prickling discomfort of his nakedness a hell of a lot more. Haste and stubbornness made him take only what he needed to walk back to campus without drawing undue attention – shirt, pants, socks and boots. He stepped mindlessly past the ruined waistcoat and tie on the floor to reach his frock coat where it had dropped by the bedroom door, and still felt a flicker of remorse as he picked it up but it was too cold a night to be wandering San Francisco without it.

As he shrugged on the fine wool garment, McCoy dared a tentative glance back to the bed, reaching towards something he might be able to say to make his departure more gentlemanly than this shameful mess. He was braced for facing down disapproval or disgust, but all there was to see now was the toned expanse of the captain’s back above the sheets gathered carelessly over his hip. Pike lay on his side, facing away from the bedroom door, lean legs drawn upward, tousled hair buried into his pillow.

Whatever feeble words McCoy might have had to give died on his tongue. As he left the bedroom and the apartment, all he heard were his own booted footsteps and a choked-off, shuddering sound that he hoped to hell was nothing more than a figment of his guilty imagination.

  


\+ + +

‘Bones?’

McCoy jumped in the indiscernible darkness of his own room, startled by the tiny and slurred voice from the opposite bed. The shock of Jim’s presence almost made him drop the bottle he had blindly groped from beneath his desk as soon as he had returned to the dorm, convinced as he was that Jim would be occupied with some new conquest for the night.

And perhaps he would have had the decency to share their bed after. Unlike some people he knew too well.

‘Wha’ time s’it?’ Sheets rustled in the dark as Jim shifted in his bed, a gentle and familiar sound that set McCoy’s teeth on edge.

‘Late,’ he answered shortly. His fingers found an empty glass on his desk, slid it closer.

Jim made a strange snuffling sound, murmured something incoherent that almost assured him of pending peace, until: ‘You drinkin’?’

He hesitated, glass and bottle poised in his hands, then sighed deeply and let them both land on the desk with a heavy thud. ‘No,’ he droned quietly. ‘No, just… just go back to sleep, Jim.’

‘Mmn, ‘kay.’ Another crisp tug of the sheets, and McCoy unwound slightly to hear Jim’s breathing even out to the soft, regular snore of sleep. With a cautious and exasperated glance at the darkened huddle of his roommate, McCoy abandoned his bourbon and slipped quietly into the bathroom instead.

While he desperately craved a shower, McCoy knew Jim was a notoriously light sleeper; the prolonged rush of water would not only waken him again but arouse his suspicions too. With another stab of resentment at Starfleet and his own pathetic circumstances, he settled for stripping out of the clinging remains of his suit and scrubbing away what he could with a wet cloth, dashing handfuls of water into his face for good measure.

He hesitated with a towel pressed over his face before he dared look up into the mirror over the sink, fearing the signs of sex he might find there. There were no visible bruises like after that first rough tryst behind Dufresne’s place, but his guts squirmed at the sight of his full-flushed mouth, swollen with a rush of blood that seemed to suffuse his entire face with something different and damning.

His hair had gone messy and wild over his forehead, and he attempted to smooth it flat but hated the way his fingers quivered as they moved.

Heavy with resignation, he turned away from his reflection and slipped from the bathroom as quietly as he had entered. He kept a wary eye on Jim’s silent form as he blindly fumbled for a pair of pajama pants and swiftly tugged them on over his naked body before crawling gingerly into his own narrow bed. As he settled stiffly onto his side facing the wall, McCoy recalled that he had left the suit scattered all over the bathroom floor but he was too exhausted to care anymore.

He hoped Jim wouldn’t ask any questions about it in the morning. He hoped Jim wouldn’t notice the whiff of sex on those ill-gotten clothes, the same heady musk that a half-assed scrub had failed to remove from his own skin.

McCoy fell into a fitful imitation of sleep, surrounded by the fading scent of aftershave and sweat, the mingled taste of sex heavy on his tongue but never to be spoken of again.


	2. Recompense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McCoy begins his new life at Starfleet Academy, and struggles to find his bearings with the Captain who recruited him.

His uniform was crisp and new, his hair cleanly parted and jaw immaculately shaved to smooth precision. He hadn’t looked so well put together since his wedding day, and yet McCoy felt indescribably dirty.

Mentally shaking off the creeping edge of indecency crawling down his neck, McCoy offered a tight smile to the keen-eyed receptionist who kept sizing him up like he was the first ripe peach of the season as he retreated through the office door. Even his seeming escape from her leering gaze was small comfort given his fear of what awaited on the other side. No matter the need to cauterize this open wound in his pride, the idea of seeing Captain Pike again made his heart hammer with dread.

Pike glanced up from the vidscreen on his desk, as professionally blank as his dull charcoal uniform but those blue-grey eyes were far too focused upon his entrance to feign complete indifference.

He stalled in the doorway at the sight. Maybe it wasn’t dread alone that made his chest ache so damn much.

‘McCoy.’

‘Captain.’ McCoy stood to attention, heels set and shoulders strong. He had made sure to practice first, but it still felt strange.

Maybe it looked strange too, judging by the hitch of Pike’s eyebrows. ‘At ease, Cadet,’ he replied, too kindly to pass for an order but McCoy relaxed anyway, surreptitiously fingering the small object hidden in the palm of his left hand and warily eyeing Pike as he stood and circled his desk.

‘I wanted to return this.’ He held out the credit chip and, in the ensuing silence, considered declaring the remaining balance to better explain himself – Pike had, it turned out, given him a shockingly hefty sum – but the numbers stuck in his throat. ‘Thanks again,’ he tried lamely. ‘I’m, um, not sure when I’ll be able to pay back what I’ve used of it, or the cost of the suit, but when I can I’ll–’

‘It wasn’t a loan.’ The sharpness in Pike’s tone cut his rambling short. ‘It was…’ The hard glint in Pike’s eyes dulled as he shook his head. ‘Well, I certainly didn’t want any repayment,’ he plucked the chip from McCoy’s hand anyway, with an unnecessarily gentle touch of his fingers, ‘but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’ Exhaling hard through his nose, glad the job was done, McCoy clasped his hands behind his back. He had known the balance on that credit chip was his to keep if he had so chosen, and signing off on his meager Academy stipend had certainly given him pause, but returning the money was his only real option.

Damned if he was going to become a charity case as well as a whore.

‘I’d preferred if you’d cleaned this out,’ Pike continued, flipping the credit chip in his fingers and studying McCoy like he were some sort of strategic problem given human form. ‘You looked like hell when you boarded that shuttle. Like you’d been sleeping rough.’

Affronted, McCoy frowned; that wasn’t entirely true. Granted, he had arranged red-eye ground shuttles for every leg of his journey to save the credits that would have been wasted on overnight accommodation, but at least he had a bed for his one night in Riverside. If only because the too-loud, too-bright bar in that one-horse town (okay, a really big horse called Enterprise, but still) had been good for nothing but a bottle of Jack to go with the room in the far quieter motel down the dirt road.

That hadn’t been the worst night of his life by a long shot, but it was a pretty low one and it was none of Captain Pike’s fucking business.

‘But I’m glad to see that Starfleet’s been agreeing with you so far.’ Pike was infuriatingly indifferent to McCoy’s inner turmoil, as easy as the gaze he cast over McCoy’s body, and he realized with a latent twinge of surprise that this was the first time Pike had seen him wearing his Academy reds. ‘It looks good on you, Cadet.’

‘Doctor,’ McCoy corrected tightly, struggling to suppress a flush of embarrassment. He wasn’t doing this again, he _wasn’t_.

Pike tilted his head, almost conceding the point. ‘Are you saying I’m mistaken? Cadet McCoy?’

Biting his lip to hold back a scathing reply, McCoy studied Pike long enough to read the tease in his eyes, but also the hard edge beneath that pleasing surface, the irrefutable fact of the man’s uncompromising authority. That was new, something that Pike had never revealed to him before throughout this perverse excuse for a courtship and despite himself, his cock throbbed faintly-hot between his legs.

‘No, Captain.’ McCoy tilted his chin slightly upright, gaze unflinching.

‘Good.’ Pike drew nearer by two patient, measured steps, close enough for the scent of the other man’s aftershave to flow into him and drag sordid memories to the surface of his thoughts like Pavlov’s taunting bell. ‘Insubordination in your first term… whatever would I do with you?’

‘Is that how it’s gonna be, _Captain_?’ The words snapped sharp off his tongue, unable to resist testing the limits of this man’s power. By the subtle curl of the captain’s lips, McCoy knew that Pike was smugly gratified to have drawn out his temper, had damn well been waiting for it. ‘Pulling rank to get what you want once the money’s off the table?’

‘Now that’s an interesting idea.’ Pike’s gaze slipped down, and McCoy bristled to realize that the man was staring at his mouth, of all things. ‘Is that what turns you on, McCoy?’

He scowled, ignored the question. ‘You’re playing a risky hand here, you know.’

‘I know.’ Pike admitted it brazenly, eyes narrowed with a veiled hint of accusation. ‘You make me reckless, drive me to stupid things…’

‘That ain’t my fault.’

‘The hell it isn’t.’ Pike’s brittle anger deflated as soon as he spat the words out. He exhaled hard, frowned down at his feet. ‘Leo…’

McCoy twitched, could almost feel the ghost of Pike’s hand tracing constellations on his skin. ‘No one calls me that, _Captain_.’

‘I do.’ Stubbornness rekindled in his eyes. ‘Because I know that beneath that self-effacing bullshit you throw around, you’re one of the proudest men I’ve ever met. Yes, proud,’ he smiled when McCoy snorted derisively. ‘Not to mention brave.’

‘Are you _insane_?’ That was probably way out of line for addressing a superior, but McCoy refused to be mocked. ‘I’m not… damn it, I’m afraid of _flying_ ,’ he spluttered, injecting the phobia with all the scorn he had ever met at that shameful admission.

‘And you still joined Starfleet.’ Pike’s smirk twitched a bit wider, turned alarmingly predatory. ‘So, that either makes you one hell of a brave man, or…’

‘Or?’

Pike licked his lips with visible anticipation. ‘Or you did it for me.’

Every muscle in McCoy’s body tensed into stillness. ‘Maybe it was neither.’

‘I think it was both.’

‘ _I_ think you’re…’ McCoy bit off his retort before he could finish spitting out something worthy of court martial, growling in frustration instead. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he asked finally, exhaustion turning him too honest. The rapacious delight in Pike’s expression softened at his changed tone, though nothing of the dare faded from his eyes.

‘What am I doing to you?’

‘You… you’re…’ He swore under his breath. ‘Look, you _know_ what I mean, don’t ask me to explain it. I’m not clever like you, I’m just…’ His shoulders slumped wearily. ‘I’m just a backwoods country doctor with nothing to my name but my divorce papers.’

‘Leo... I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit.’ Despite the harsh statement, Pike’s hands settling on his shoulders and soothing down his arms were gentle, and McCoy was too worn down and defeated to shove him away. ‘You’re so much more than that…’

He shook his head defiantly, throat too constricted to speak properly.

‘I know you’re more than a doctor, just like you know I’m more than a Starfleet captain,’ Pike continued fervently. ‘From the moment we met, you didn’t care about my rank, my position, none of that shit. Do you have any idea how rare that is, how it made me feel?’

McCoy sucked in a much-needed breath; Pike was so close now. His lips were so close. ‘I…’ he started, and his eyes squeezed shut in embarrassment at the sound of his voice, strangled by the lump in his throat. ‘I just want to be a doctor again,’ he whispered hoarsely.

The hands running over his arms went still, and even in the contained shell of his own misery McCoy missed the comfort of that constant caress. He could still feel Pike’s heat inches away, felt his sigh rush hot against the side of his face.

_‘Commodore Ramirez here to see you, Captain.’_

The departmental receptionist’s voice echoing from Pike’s desk-mounted comm unit was like a cold blast of air. McCoy shuddered beneath Pike’s fingers as they clenched convulsively at his biceps before letting go.

‘Thank you, Perkins,’ Pike called out, cool and clear. ‘I’ll see him out there momentarily.’

Cautiously opening his eyes, McCoy clenched his hands behind his back as Pike drew reluctantly away, staring at McCoy with an odd expression, like guilt and blame rolled into one. ‘Sorry,’ he said simply, with a reticence that could have made the word apply to anything from their first meeting to this present interruption. In the ambiguous silence of McCoy’s inability to accept or refuse the apology, Pike’s demeanour slipped from staunch self-control to something slower, silkier as his eyes shifted down, then up again. McCoy froze, dumbstruck by the intensity gathered in Pike’s shakily drawn breath. ‘You should probably go.’

‘Yeah.’ And McCoy made himself turn before he could hesitate, moving swiftly through the doors and into the instructor’s atrium. He could sense Pike walking at his heels, heard his voice as he greeted whatever Commodore McCoy had steadfastly ignored because he could only look ahead to the next set of doors, and the next, until sunlight expanded across the grass beneath his feet.

He sank down on the nearest bench, breathing deeply of the cool air. This should have felt like freedom, but the heaviness in his chest felt like nothing of the sort.

  


\+ + +

  
It seemed impossible that anything so electric and dangerous as that meeting could pass without consequence; but contrary to all his paranoia, life at Starfleet was easier, faster than before. Gone was the tense anticipation and distracting counterplay, smoothed out by a dull, hollow ache with which McCoy was far more familiar. He did as he’d always done, threw himself into his studies with a fervour that drew admiration and fear from his so-called peers in Starfleet Medical, the wide-eyed brats with more entitlement issues than brains (and he could see now where Pike’s scorn for the state of the Academy came from, but he wasn’t thinking of Pike anymore, not at all). He tore through his coursework on an impassioned sort of autopilot, with energy enough left over to face the mandatory ‘Fleet training without dissolving into panic in this face of this strange militaristic way of life.

The first term slipped through his fingers like sand cut through with jagged rocks, leaving him worn down but empty-handed as the first round of exams drew to their close. And if he drank as hard as he studied at the end of the day, and had to lean a bit too heavily on Jim to get home in the early morning, it didn’t seem to affect his academic performance in the slightest.

Which was what McCoy kept repeating to himself as he stared bleakly at the summons on his PADD from Starfleet Medical.

‘Why’re you so nervous?’ Jim asked flippantly, fingers busily scattering the components of McCoy’s spare tricorder across his desk. ‘It’s probably just some boring advisor bullshit for next term.’

‘From the Deputy Head of Starfleet Medical?’ he retorted hoarsely, transfixed by the coolly phrased message, the official Starfleet Medical seal glowing at the signature line.

Jim whistled low. ‘Okay, maybe not.’ He glanced up appraisingly, absently fitting circuits back together. ‘Have you been a naughty Bones?’ he sing-songed, eyebrows waggling.

‘Damn it, _no_.’ He _hadn’t_ , because he had read Starfleet’s fraternization rules three blazing times now and call it a loophole but there was _nothing_ specific about Cadet-Instructor relationships outside of a teaching situation, and since Pike taught for an entirely different branch of the Academy there was no particular mechanism by which either of them could be drummed out of the service.

So went his argument, and no matter how many times he repeated that bit of logic in his head he knew it would freeze on his tongue when faced by a panel of stony-faced, no-doubt-celibate Admirals.

As it happened, there was no panel of puritanical Admirals rallying to his destruction when he was mutely ushered into one of the hushed upper-level offices of Starfleet Medical. The sole occupant of the wide, sun-lit room was a distinguished older woman seated behind a desk cluttered with PADDs, several hand-thrown ceramic mugs filled with the cold dregs of tea, and clusters of framed old-process photographs of three children at various ages of their seemingly flawless lives. Admiral Vance had their same black hair streaked grey at the temples, the same nose as what were clearly her children.

With a pang of bitterness, McCoy looked away from the pictures.

‘Cadet McCoy,’ Vance greeted absently, eyes still fixed to the monitor on her desk. ‘Please have a seat.’

‘Ma’am.’ He sat stiffly at the edge of the offered chair, back straight and palms pressed down on his thighs. The Admiral took a few long moments to finish her work, moments in which the knot of trepidation in his gut twisted itself tighter and turned into barely repressed panic by the time Vance finished her work and fixed him with her startling blue-green eyes.

Her smile was kind, almost as sweet as the looks his ex-wife used to throw his way. McCoy tried to not to vomit into his lap.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said lightly, flicking long fingers to her monitor. ‘Busy time, end of term.’

‘Not at all, ma’am.’

‘Been fitting in nicely, I see.’

McCoy hoped to hell that wasn’t a euphemism. ‘If you say so.’

‘Well, the numbers are telling me so.’ The corners of her eyes crinkled with amusement as she thumbed through something displayed on one of her many PADDs. ‘You’re top of your class clear across the medical track, which I suppose is understandable given your previous qualifications.’

A stab of indignation cut through McCoy’s nervousness. _Understandable, my ass._ He had worked damn hard this past term, if only to keep his mind distracted from other matters.

‘And your early results are showing excellent performance in all your non-medical requirements as well,’ Vance continued. ‘Not quite up to your unparalleled standard in medical, but still very impressive.’

He allowed himself a small, self-satisfied nod. _Better_ , but he waited for the other shoe to drop, wondered where Vance was going with all this reluctant praise. Perhaps an accusation of sleeping his way to better grades? Hardly – he would have flunked out by now if he were being graded on his ability to satisfy the sexual urges of his superiors.

‘By all indications, you seem to be coping with your workload quite adeptly.’ Vance dropped the PADD onto one of her many stacks and fixed McCoy with a plainly inquisitive stare. ‘Would you agree with that assessment, Cadet?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I would.’

His lack of hesitation seemed to please her. ‘Think you can handle more?’

McCoy frowned at the seeming dare. ‘I… don’t think I follow.’

‘You enlisted in Starfleet with a suspended license to practice medicine.’

Involuntarily, McCoy broke her gaze, glaring resentfully at his mute hands. ‘I was assured that wasn’t a problem, ma’am,’ he replied tersely.

‘It’s not.’ Vance was absorbed in yet another PADD, narrowed eyes scanning side to side. ‘Quite the contrary, in two weeks it could be a great advantage.’

‘Ma’am?’ He glanced up sharply in surprise, already counting urgently back in his mind, closing in rapidly on the Admiral’s meaning.

‘Your suspension was set to a temporary term of six months, and your record shows no cause to impede your requalification to practice.’ Vance folded her hands on her desk. ‘We need more doctors, McCoy,’ she said plainly. ‘Recruitment to the medical track is down, and most of our qualified physicians have been moving on to the Vulcan Science Academy for post-graduate research. And we’ve got a hospital that sees more stupid cadet injuries per week than you can begin to imagine.’

‘No, ma’am, I think I have a rough idea,’ he muttered, memories of his more adventurous nights out with Jim playing through his head. Vance frowned in confusion, and McCoy shook his head apologetically, flustered by his slip of the tongue and prematurely jubilant at the prospect of what Vance seemed to be proposing.

‘You understand that hospital rotation duties are not traditionally assigned to first year cadets,’ she continued. ‘This wouldn’t be a requirement, but Starfleet Medical could definitely use your help in the hospital if you were willing to take on the added responsibility.’

McCoy’s heart leapt with hope, disbelief.

‘Of course, Starfleet would compensate you accordingly,’ Vance added, and he had to close his eyes a moment to collect himself. This all sounded too good to be true, so good that something hard inside him was still bracing for the bad news but he still preferred to face that possibility head-on.

‘Cadet?’

He swallowed tightly, looked up again. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I mean… yes, ma’am, of course. I’d be honoured.’

‘Good.’ Vance turned to the stack on her right, tapped a few entries onto the uppermost PADD, and passed it across the desk. ‘Bring this to Dr. Boyce, he’ll get you sorted on the particulars.’

McCoy accepted the PADD with a humble nod and his politest thanks as he pushed to his feet, concentrating hard on keeping his feet, light-headed as he was with anticipation. He had joined Starfleet for precisely this chance to prove his worth again, but had never dared imagine that the opportunity to properly practice medicine again, to bring some peace to the restless impatience crawling just beneath his skin every day, would arrive so soon.

Still numb with unaccustomed pleasure, he blindly found himself reporting to the hospital’s Chief Surgeon, his office so close to the bustle of his vocation that McCoy barely mustered an appropriate greeting as he shook the venerable man’s hand. As such, he figured he had to be hallucinating when the first words he caught after a similarly bland greeting had been, ‘Can I offer you a martini?’

‘Beg pardon, sir?’

‘A martini, young man.’ Doctor Boyce slid aside a refrigerated panel in his office wall to reveal several bottles, glasses and a transparent aluminum cocktail shaker. ‘Just the thing to ease off those nerves.’

McCoy gaped wordlessly at the chilled glass being pressed into his hand. ‘Um… thank you, sir.’ He took a cautious sip, eyebrows rising as his tongue took in the fine balance of the drink, the mildest echo of vermouth lifting the flavour of the vodka. Already, the alcohol was grounding his nerves from the inside out, and he gratefully swallowed down another mouthful. Boyce chuckled.

‘I like you already, my boy.’ He toasted McCoy briefly with his own glass before taking a sip. ‘Christopher was right about you, that’s for sure.’

He nearly choked on his drink. ‘Sorry, sir?’

‘You’re altogether too polite, anyone ever told you that?’ Boyce raised a stern eyebrow at him over his own martini, and the accusation was so ridiculous that McCoy finally relaxed with a low laugh.

‘No, can’t say they have,’ he admitted wryly. ‘Usually quite the opposite, if I’m being completely honest with you.’

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ The older man’s eyes sparkled. ‘That’s another thing Christopher mentioned about you. Honest to a fault, am I right?’

Another anxious twinge prickled at McCoy’s conscience. ‘You mean Captain Pike, I suppose.’

‘That’s right.’ Boyce was returning to his side of the desk, the fingers of his drink-free hand scrolling through the PADD McCoy had passed on from Admiral Vance. ‘I was his CMO on the Yorktown,’ he added idly. ‘One of the finest captains in the ‘Fleet. He’s got a sharp eye for talent, if I do say so.’

Boyce winked at him before giving the PADD his full attention for a minute, an endless stretch of time in which the warmth of happiness and drink lingering inside McCoy grew cold with shame. He hated the lewdness implied in that friendly wink, and bit his tongue as best he could, at least until Boyce finished his reading. ‘And you say Captain Pike mentioned me, sir?’

‘Oh, yes, did he ever.’ The smile Boyce aimed at him was almost fatherly in its regard; it told McCoy nothing he needed to know. ‘It’s his recommendation that got your name on Admiral Vance’s desk. And I’m glad to see Christopher’s instincts were right as they ever were.’ He reached backward for the cocktail shaker. ‘If anything, you’re overqualified for this sort of work. Might have to see about getting you into research next term, hmn?’

The conversation eased to the strictly professional, even though Boyce continued to regard him with a thoroughly undeserved fondness that turned McCoy’s freshly-chilled martini and the two that followed into a ball of ice in his chest.

He refused to blame Philip Boyce for the unshakable anxiety plaguing his pleasure in taking up hospital rounds and performing surgeries again. As the weeks passed into the second term, McCoy had to admit that he rather liked Boyce – they shared a demand for perfection leavened by a fondness for drink and peaceful idleness in their rare downtime. Boyce appreciated rather than rankled at McCoy’s frequently blunt bedside manner, and was equally frank in return.

For that camaraderie, for his duties and his reawakening self-confidence, McCoy was deeply grateful. Before this, his life at the Academy had been uncomfortably hollow with… no, not just with Pike’s absence, because Jim had become the closest friend he had known for such a long time but the kid had crazy ideas about his progress on the command track that kept him increasingly busy, that had frequently left McCoy alone in their shared room with only his medical journals and cheap replicated bourbon for company.

The bourbon was still a bit below his preference, but he could afford the real thing now and make it last longer with less idle time on his hands. In all the ways that counted, he was living rather than merely enduring the passing of the days, but beneath that satisfaction, beneath the good graces of Starfleet and Philip Boyce lurked the inescapable presence of Christopher Pike.

Though he had neither seen nor heard from the captain since that last meeting in his office, there was no doubt in his mind that Pike had been directly responsible for his hospital placement. Boyce had admitted as much, and with that knowledge came the certainty that Pike’s intercession came at a price. McCoy did not expect anything as crass as a direct demand for sexual repayment because Pike was, in his way, a perfect gentleman. But the burden of the favour had been dealt with the efficiency of a chess move that shadowed his every step and twisted itself into his increasingly sordid fantasies. Too frequent and distracting were those darker and more elaborate scenarios in which Pike would charmingly and ruthlessly bend him to serve his every filthy whim and McCoy would bite down hard on his lower lip while coming messily into his own hand.

The nagging question of Pike’s intentions took up permanent residence in the back of McCoy’s mind, quick to spring into full suspicion when, on arriving at Boyce’s office near the end of second term, he froze to hear a familiar voice from behind the door.

He hesitated, willing himself to not listen closely enough to discern words from Pike’s indecipherable murmurs. Part of him was calling for a rapid retreat but the larger, more stubborn part of him reminded McCoy that he had an appointment with Boyce and damned if he was going to let Pike interrupt his day by stint of being in the wrong room at the wrong time.

And if this was the moment of his comeuppance, so be it. He was damn well sick of waiting.

Teeth gritted, McCoy rapped the door once and let himself in with no further warning.

‘McCoy!’ Boyce beamed at him from behind his desk, which was more crowded than usual with the addition of Pike’s booted feet kicked up on the corner. By instinct alone, McCoy’s eye followed the line of Pike’s legs across to where the captain sat slouched in his chair, a drink dangling from the tips of his fingers. He would have looked for all the world like a man at complete ease if not for the paralysis of his entire body, the unmistakable distress creasing his brow. Pike’s eyes were turbulent with things that made McCoy ache for him, like sadness and resentment and hope twisted into something he knew too well.

Then McCoy realized he was _gazing into Pike’s eyes_ , and snapped his head around to face the other doctor in the room. If a man as tightly controlled as Pike was revealing that much, he hated to think what his own eyes were showing.

‘We had an appointment, sir?’ he asked stiffly.

‘We did, didn’t we?’ If Boyce was claiming to have forgotten, he was doing a damn bad job of it. ‘Of course, take a seat. Care for a drink? The Captain and I were just–’

‘No, thank you, I–’

‘No, I’m not…’

Pike spoke over Boyce at the same moment McCoy did; for an awkward, ringing silence they both held their tongues, waiting without looking for the other to continue. Eventually, mercifully, Pike cleared his throat and sat up, feet sliding down from the desk.

‘I was just leaving,’ Pike said, setting his barely-touched martini down on the desk. ‘Apologies, Cadet,’ he added, though his gaze was fixed stonily on Boyce. ‘I was not aware that you had a meeting scheduled.’

The accusation in Pike’s voice was plain, but Boyce merely smiled back. ‘My mistake, Christopher,’ he said blandly, though McCoy noticed the sharpening of his eyes as they followed Pike out the door. Boyce’s office was small, and McCoy had held his breath with every expectation that Pike would find an excuse to surreptitiously touch him on his way past but he slipped deftly away without so much as a look.

McCoy angrily stifled the creeping edge of his disappointment.

‘May as well have a seat, McCoy.’ The smile dropped from Boyce’s face as soon as the door had slid shut again; far from amused, Boyce looked tired, and a touch exasperated.

Lips pressed thin, McCoy took the second visitor’s chair, ignoring Pike’s former chair pulled companionably up to the side of the desk. ‘I’ve prepared that proposal we’d discussed, sir.’ McCoy pushed his PADD across the desk and tapped his fingers anxiously on his thigh while Boyce casually skimmed its contents.

‘Capellan Neurodegenerative Syndrome.’ He glanced up at McCoy questioningly. ‘A bit ambitious, don’t you think?’

‘I’ve identified several genetic markers similar to those that occur in cases of Pyrrhoneuritis.’ He was relieved that he could name the illness without tripping over its deathly syllables. ‘There’s enough of a correlation that I’d like to try adapting some of the new treatments.’

‘I see.’ Boyce kept his eyes fixed on the PADD, his tone casual. ‘Seems sensible, considering that your name is attached to quite a few of the early breakthroughs leading to the cure for Pyrrhoneuritis.’

McCoy flinched, curled his hand into a fist.

‘No need for the scowling, my boy,’ Boyce chided, looking up again with that damned fatherly warmth in his eyes. ‘So you’ve got personal motives. Can make for better results if you put them to good use.’

He smiled encouragingly at McCoy and continued reading.

‘You’ve requested lab time for the coming break,’ Boyce observed, less approving than before.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s only seven days.’ With an impatient sigh, Boyce set the PADD aside. ‘And nowhere near enough notice to reserve the lab hours. Why not wait until the Academy dismisses for summer leave? You’ll have six weeks then… unless you had hoped to get away during that time…’

‘No, I hadn’t.’ McCoy frowned down at his hands. ‘Got nowhere to go, sir,’ he admitted moodily. ‘Not then, and not next week. Frankly, I’d hoped to keep busy running some of the early simulations I’ve outlined there, so I could apply my findings to a second course of tests for the summer break.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Boyce muttered, passing a hand over his face, ‘you really are as bad as Christopher.’

McCoy bristled defensively. ‘With respect, sir, I fail to see what–’

‘Fine, forget I said it.’ Boyce waved a dismissive hand and leaned in with a sympathetic air that set McCoy’s teeth on edge. ‘It’s one lousy week, McCoy, and I’m sure you could use the rest.’

Awkward discomfort cringed up McCoy’s spine; he glanced towards Pike’s abandoned drink, wondering what Jim would be up to during the break. He thought he recalled some drunken mumbling about tearing off on some mad rock-climbing expedition, and no doubt a kid with Jim’s energy needed the adrenaline rush but there went any hope of having company for those seven days without classes or hospital duties to keep him away from the bottle.

Seven goddamn days. ‘So what the hell am I supposed to do, then?’ he muttered, largely to himself but Boyce snorted a laugh and returned to his assessment of McCoy’s research proposal.

‘Nothing,’ he said simply. ‘Anything. Read a book, go out for a picnic, just stay the hell away from this hospital.’

Sensing McCoy’s disgruntled mood, Boyce looked up again. ‘Look, I promise you’ll have your research placement this summer,’ he assured gently. ‘But nothing you’re running from is worth forgetting that there’s still a young man somewhere under the doctor. Give him a damn break, already.’

Boyce left him to consider the admonition while he continued reading, his averted gaze giving McCoy the space to brood upon that unwelcome observation. Almost without thought, he plucked up Pike’s unfinished martini, watching the crystal-clear alcohol spark off the cold facets of the glass.

When he took a sip of the drink, he imagined he could still taste the imprint of Pike’s lips.

\+ + +

  
McCoy had thought it would be more harrowing than this.

He had assumed it would take a cataclysm, perhaps another furtive encounter fueled by recklessness and drink, or a disaster that would land Pike on his table in surgery, a medical crisis skillfully averted that would lead to remonstrations and tears and bittersweet confession.

None of these things had come to pass. Nothing had happened, save that one tantalizing glimpse of the man, a diminished shell of his usual striking self. He hated seeing Pike so withdrawn, hated himself even more for being responsible for such hurt.

Jim had left campus that morning, possessed of an itch that had nothing to do with the thick synthetic fibres of their uniforms and everything to do with speed and adrenaline and open space. Being a good kid at heart, Jim had extended an invitation to come along but McCoy could only imagine the havoc that rock climbing would wreak on his equilibrium.

So he was alone, and the chasm with its secret name was yawning in the silence, lazy but expectant. He had waited so long for Pike to make his next move, and that fact made another, nearly identical but fundamentally different realization click into place.

He had been _waiting_ for Pike. He was waiting still.

McCoy only had two tokens left from Christopher Pike. That troublesome credit chip was long gone, and any bruises he may have earned in the course of their sex would have faded by now if there had been any. Pike had been so careful with his body.

That left him with the suit, crumpled into a resentful ball at the back of his closet, and the note bearing Pike’s off-campus address. He smoothed the touch-worn slip of paper between his fingers, once again immersed in the clean, confident lines of Pike’s handwriting, especially compared to the four digits scratched underneath in his own messier hand. They were numbers he had no business remembering but some tiny, spiteful part of him had refused to let them go.

_‘Shh, wait, hold on…’ Pike wrenched his mouth away, gasping into McCoy’s ear in time to the roll of his hips grinding him into his apartment’s secure door. ‘Hold on, I…’ Quiet beeps sprang up beneath Pike’s fingers. ‘Seven, one, three, five…’_

_The door swept out from behind McCoy’s back, and in his tipsy state he stumbled over the threshold but Pike caught him steady and sure, kept him on his feet._

_’I’ve got you,’_ Pike had said, heartfelt and low and so very damn true.

McCoy blinked out of the memory, tapped a fingertip on the numbers. Seven. One. Three. Five.

It was that easy, really.

He considered his cadet reds in the mirror for a long indecisive moment before shaking his head and stripping them off. Despite that flare of heat in Pike’s eyes when he had first seen McCoy in uniform, he didn’t want Starfleet entering into this. His other options were pretty slim pickings, and McCoy slipped automatically into his tidiest black pants and considered the two button-down shirts at his disposal, quickly dismissing the white shirt from that suit in favour of his old blue one, the brushed cotton soft against his back from too many washings.

The cab ride off Academy grounds to Pike’s apartment tower in Richmond was a quick one; he could have walked it if he had trusted himself to not change his mind halfway there. As it was, McCoy prided himself on his mere five minutes loitering on the walkway outside the building and rewarded his seeming willpower by anxiously pacing the tight interior of the lift as it sped him nauseously upward to the twenty-seventh floor.

For the first time since that night, he was grateful he had been drunk for this the first time around. In another moment of weakness, he patted down the pockets of his old khaki coat as the lift came to a gut-twisting halt but he had moved his flask to his desk drawer a long time ago.

It was also just gone 1400 in the afternoon.

McCoy cursed under his breath, scrubbed a hand through his hair. Even with the Academy’s spring break underway, there was every chance that Pike would still be on campus at this hour. He supposed he could wait inside if Pike were gone, maybe lay himself down in Pike’s bed…

‘Ridiculous,’ he muttered derisively, glaring hard at the innocuous little keypad outside Pike’s door. If anything he should just leave, call ahead, anything but this ill-conceived bullshit.

The keypad glared back at him.

Seven. One. Three. Five.

The door slid open.

_Fuck._

Swallowing hard, McCoy impulsively ducked inside before the door slid shut on him. In the daylight that flooded the apartment from a bank of high windows overlooking the water, McCoy could see that the room was arranged as the open plan as he had surmised from his first, late-night visit. Blond wood floors stretched from the door to the seating area to a home office separated from the main space of the apartment by a wide desk.

And from behind the desk, Pike stared at him with thinly veiled astonishment.

McCoy froze within the grip of that gaze, struck dumb by the sudden onset of this moment. Words failed to come to mind, though his brow furrowed in confusion when he heard a voice ask an incoherent question. He sure as hell didn’t speak, and neither did Pike, who jumped slightly in his chair and snapped his head back down to the vidscreen on his desk.

‘Sorry, got a bit distracted there,’ he said smoothly to whoever was at the other end. ‘Please continue.’

The frown creasing McCoy’s brow deepened. Whatever work Pike was engaged in, he wasn’t in a hurry to drop it for McCoy’s sake. Fair enough given the fine job McCoy had done of ignoring him the past couple months, but damned if he was going to leave now that he had come this far. With an arch of his eyebrow, McCoy stepped further into the apartment and shrugged off his coat, letting it drop over the arm of a cordovan leather couch as he walked past.

The sound of his travel-worn coat hitting the finely crafted sofa distracted Pike from his conversation, made him glance up again with a spark of interest. Taking advantage of Pike’s attention while it was still within his grasp, McCoy lifted his chin slightly and flicked open the uppermost button of his shirt.

Pike’s eyes widened. ‘By thirty-two percent, you say?’ he asked, a touch absently. ‘Yes, that does agree with my figures here.’

McCoy took another step closer, unfastened another button.

‘What?’ Pike flicked his attention back to the screen, back up to McCoy. ‘No, of course I meant thirteen percent,’ he corrected sharply.

With a satisfied smirk, McCoy untucked his shirt, careful to flash a bit of skin before continuing his unbuttoning from the bottom up.

Pike turned away from his screen altogether, mouth slightly agape with poorly-concealed wonderment that lingered on several beats too long before he snapped his jaw shut and turned back to the comm. ‘Actually, I’ll have to check those numbers and catch up with you later. Pike out.’

He deactivated the comm link with a firm slap to the controls and rolled back from his desk, gaze now riveted on McCoy as he sauntered cautiously closer.

‘Hi,’ he attempted shyly.

Pike swallowed tightly. ‘Aren’t you going to keep going?’ he asked hoarsely, gesturing weakly at what McCoy took to be his shirt.

‘I could,’ he offered, flicking another button open. At the approving heat in Pike’s eyes, he kept going, slowly unfastening his shirt until it hung open from his shoulders. ‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’

‘That depends.’ Pike chewed at his lower lip, eyes drifting down his bared torso. ‘If you’re just here to tease me before striking me down again, I’d rather be able to enjoy this part first.’

McCoy repressed an irritated flinch; he had to admit he had that coming to him. ‘That’s not what I’m here for,’ he assured, letting the shirt drop altogether as a goodwill gesture. Pike exhaled gently, almost gratefully.

‘Does that mean I get to see more?’ His gaze dropped, hopefully, lower.

‘Would you hear anything I said if I did?’

‘Probably not,’ Pike admitted ruefully.

‘Then no, not yet.’ A flutter of pleasure kicked through McCoy’s chest at Pike’s soft groan. He felt a rush of power that he normally associated with the operating theatre, like he was holding Pike’s heart in his capable hands. As always, the sensation was a humbling one as well; his satisfied smirk faded beneath the weight of it as he circled the wide desk, his gaze dropping downward as he drew closer. The captain captured his wrist as McCoy stepped within range of his touch, the downward tug an unmistakable command.

McCoy kept his eyes lowered as he settled into Pike’s lap, knees straddling his thighs in the luxuriously wide seat of the desk chair. ‘I need to apologize,’ he began stiffly, eyes fixed on the pulse of Pike’s neck. ‘I never should have left that night after the reception, and I wish to hell I hadn’t, but…’

He furrowed his brow, hunting down the right words, and Pike gently stroked his bare arm in the silence. ‘It’s alright, you don’t really need to–’

‘Damn it, man, just keep it quiet a minute, would you?’ McCoy barked, and amazingly Pike snapped his mouth shut, eyes flashing with barely restrained amusement. ‘If I don’t say it now, I don’t think it’s gonna happen at all, so shut up and listen, okay?’

Pike nodded once, the corner of his mouth twitching, and McCoy barreled on before he broke down laughing.

‘When I was with you that night… hell, whenever you’re around, you make me forget things I don’t think I have any business forgetting, no matter how good it feels to just pretend the last couple years never happened. Being with you makes all that… it’s just _gone_ , and it’s amazing and terrifying at the same time because it’s like I never learned, like I’ll end up making the same stupid mistakes again. Which I guess I already did,’ he added as an apologetic afterthought. ‘But there it is. And okay, maybe I was a little freaked out because I… Well.’ He scowled at the flush he could feel warming his face. ‘I mean, I fooled around with the very occasional boy back at Ole Miss, but I’d never done… you know…’

‘Oh, no…’ Pike looked devastated, concern creasing his brow. ‘Oh, Leo… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know, if I…’

McCoy planted a hand across Pike’s mouth and gave him a warning glare.

‘Like I was saying,’ he continued deliberately, ‘you broke me in good and proper and it scared the shit out of me, and I know I should have told you at the time but I… fuck, I didn’t want you to ever stop.’ He drew a shaky breath, letting his hand drop from Pike’s muted lips. ‘I don’t like one-night stands, and no matter how incredible I felt after what we did, I hated myself for falling into it in the first place.’ Closing his eyes, McCoy licked his dry lips, urging the rest of the thought forward. ‘Because I never wanted it to be just one night, or even two or three. And I couldn’t believe that you would ever want more than that yourself, because I…’ he choked back a bitter laugh, ‘well, that’s just not how it goes, not for me.’

He opened his eyes, saw Pike studying him sadly and looked away again. ‘So yeah, I screwed it up before you got the chance to deal me the rejection I figured I had coming. It was stupid, and I know it hurt you, and you can’t imagine how sorry I am. You didn’t deserve it, not after everything you’ve done for me.’ Stating it plainly, without bitterness or shame, seemed to lift something of that burden, though he felt every bit as wrong-footed as he had when he first walked in here. McCoy drew a deep breath, prepared to throw down all he had left to say.

‘And I still have no idea what I’m doing here, or why you seem so damn interested in a washed-up country doctor who has nothing to offer you in return, but I want to make this right… hell, I want _you_.’ He flinched at his own bald honesty. ‘Um, if you still… you know. Want… that.’

McCoy held his breath, and waited while Pike considered him with an unnerving intensity that drew out the silence beyond bearing, eyes flicking rapidly over McCoy’s face. Finally, his lips parted, eyes wary with trepidation before he spoke slowly, cautiously.

‘Am I allowed to talk now?’

‘What?’ McCoy squinted down at him, scowled when the deadpanned nervousness on Pike’s face twitched with amusement. ‘Damn it, of course you are. You don’t need a damned engraved invitation, do you?’

‘I hope not.’ The hand that had been resting lightly on McCoy’s arm skimmed upward, grazing harder over bare skin and closing firm around the back of his neck. ‘Would I need an invitation to kiss you right now?’

McCoy glowered before he leaned in and wiped that smirk away with the force of his own lips. Pike opened eagerly to the first sweep of his tongue and McCoy’s impatience and frustration rapidly uncoiled into the need to reacquaint himself with Pike’s kiss and taste and touch. His hands on McCoy’s body were alive with purpose, the one still possessive at the nape of his neck while the other roamed freely down his spine and around his torso like he was trying to map his entire upper body in a single continuous caress. McCoy stroked Pike’s face and hair in turn while writhing into each passage of those knowing fingers over his skin, suddenly hot and craving and humping Pike like a damn teenager. Though sturdy, the chair creaked ominously under their combined weight, and McCoy broke off their kiss with a gasping intake of breath.

‘We should move,’ McCoy hushed, trying and failing to repress a delirious grin that Pike returned, thumb brushing fondly over the corner of his mouth.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed softly, eyes skimming down to where McCoy’s erection strained the fabric of his pants. ‘I’ve got a good half dozen things I want to do with this gorgeous body of yours, and I think I could only manage two of them in this chair.’

An anticipatory shiver raced after the finger Pike drew down his spine but something of his hesitation crawled back through the rising waves of his lust. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, dropping his own gaze and finding Pike every bit as hard as he was. ‘I mean, we’ve been avoiding each other for months…’

Pike tilted his head incredulously. ‘And now that you’re here, half-naked, and sitting in my lap, you expect me to question it?’

Though McCoy didn’t have any answer to that question, something must have shown in his face because Pike’s expression eased into understanding. ‘I want you,’ he said solemnly, tipping his chin up with the backs of his fingers. ‘Always have. You can’t begin to imagine how much… how it killed me to do nothing but wait for you, knowing how close I came to pushing you away already…’

‘I know, darling.’ McCoy ducked his head and brushed a chaste kiss over Pike’s rough knuckles, keenly aware of the other man’s soft moan at such a simple gesture. ‘I missed you, too,’ he hushed earnestly. ‘So damn much.’

Pike dragged him back down into another kiss, licking his way into McCoy’s mouth and drowning the last of his inhibitions. He pushed back into Pike’s lips and hands with everything he had, sucking hard on Pike’s tongue and pushing his hands down Pike’s chest and into his lap. Even through his dense instructor’s uniform, McCoy easily found the shape and heat of his cock, so thick and responsive to his touch.

‘Bed,’ Pike panted, wrenching his mouth away again. ‘Now.’

They tumbled from the overwrought chair and crossed the kitchen to the bedroom with unwavering speed, dragging and stalking each other in equal measure. McCoy tore at Pike’s uniform as soon as the wide bed was within sight, and Pike’s own urgent fingers made the more complex fastenings fall open mercifully quick.

‘You never did get to feel my mouth on your dick,’ McCoy pointed out softly, reaching down into loosened charcoal trousers to palm his erection. ‘I’d like to make up for that, if you don’t mind, darling.’ His fingers closed around him, stroking firmly while he bowed his head to lick the salt of Pike’s skin from his shoulders and clavicles. ‘I want to taste you so bad,’ he drawled, and Pike groaned deeply, hips arching into his touch.

‘Keep talking like that and you won’t get the chance,’ he rasped, fingers bruising hard into the back of his neck. ‘Swear I could come just from the sound of your voice…’

McCoy buried his pleased smile at the juncture of Pike’s neck and shoulder, nuzzling fondly before pushing Pike down on the unmade bed to finish stripping his lean body. He absently noted how untidy the bedroom was compared to before as he hastily kicked away his own pants and shoes and socks among the clothing already littering the floor. The relative disorder in the room, however, paled in comparison to the far more enticing sight of Pike waiting among the rumpled sheets, propped up on one elbow the better to watch McCoy strip through narrowed eyes. From the haughty tilt of his head down to his flexed abdominal muscles and proudly jutting cock, he was a picture fit to make McCoy groan out loud with want.

Lowering himself down to the bed, McCoy crawled between Pike’s splayed legs, scenting along his firm inner thighs towards his cock. Licking his lips, McCoy took him in hand and laved his shaft with the flat of his tongue, wetting him down thoroughly before taking the head of his dick into his mouth. He sucked and stroked with every worshipful bone in his body, pouring every apology he had so poorly conveyed in words into this one devotional act. Pike’s hand tangled approvingly into his hair, and he moaned softly in anticipation of a tighter grip or a forceful shove, but those fingers remained gentle, combing ticklish strands of hair back from his forehead.

He took Pike as deep as he could, showing him how much he could take, and glanced up at the sound of Pike’s soft, shuddering sigh. ‘Oh, Leo…’ His other hand joined the first in stroking his hair, his neck, his face. ‘Yes… oh, yes, beautiful, just like… _ah_ …’

Pike’s hips snapped upward, pushing the head of his cock to the back of McCoy’s throat, nearly choking him but McCoy held stubbornly still, swallowing reflexively around the flesh filling his mouth while continuing to expertly massage his perineum with knowing fingertips and Pike yelled hoarsely, breathing rapidly and gripping his head tight in both hands – not to force him down, but to pull him away.

‘Come here,’ he gasped, chest heaving as he dragged McCoy up the length of his body and into a sloppy kiss. ‘Too soon for that,’ he muttered, lips smearing wetly over his cheek. ‘Not nearly as young as you… want to make this last…’

Pike’s mouth dragged over the edge of his jaw to explore his neck, reaching down to pet McCoy’s cock where it lay heavy between their bodies. He stretched languidly into Pike’s attentions, his hand sliding beneath the pillow alongside Pike’s head as he leaned in to offer his throat, fingers brushing up against something silky-smooth, quite unlike the soft cotton weave of the bed sheets. The sense memory evoked by its texture made him tug his hand out, head turning sideways to glimpse the familiar pale olive silk of the ascot tie he had worn at the Medical reception.

To his greater astonishment, Pike flushed with obvious embarrassment.

‘You can, um, have that back, if you like.’ He reached up, threading the length of silk out from between McCoy’s fingers, making his breath catch involuntarily when its loose end whisked sharply around his wrist. ‘It stopped smelling like you a while ago,’ he added grudgingly, eyes still averted as he threw the bundled fabric aside with a self-conscious grimace. With a twisted surge of irony, McCoy thought of how quick Jocelyn would have been to toss him out of bed before treating anything bought at Willington’s with such disdain, never mind sullying such expensive silk the way Pike most likely had done.

‘If I took that back, would it smell like you now?’ he asked, canting his hips into the heat of Pike’s body below. ‘Did you rub off against it, thinking about how you fucked me that night?’

Fingers bit hard into his hipbones as Pike shuddered and arched up against him, his cock sliding wet with spit and pre-come against his inner thigh. ‘Sometimes,’ he admitted breathlessly, craning his head to graze his teeth over one of McCoy’s nipples. ‘Some nights, I used it to jerk off, wrapped around my dick… thought about the other ways I wanted to fuck that tight ass of yours…’

He squeezed said ass in both hands, then released his grip slowly on a long, steadying exhale, stroking up and down McCoy’s back. ‘We don’t have to, though,’ he said softly, lips brushing across his chest. ‘We can do anything you want… I could suck you, or use my hands on you, or…’

‘I want to ride your cock.’ McCoy blurted it out before he could stop himself, driven to distraction by the heat of Pike’s cock throbbing against his inner thigh, twitching hard against his balls when the request spilled from his lips.

‘ _Fuck…_ ’ Pike groaned loudly, head dropping back on the bed.

‘At least… I’d like to try it,’ he added, his face growing hot. ‘And I don’t mind following your lead on this one… I, er, kinda liked it when you took charge last time…’ God damn, he was definitely blushing now but it was almost worth it for the scorching desire that passed over Pike’s face.

‘So you’d like it better if I made you ride my cock?’ McCoy whimpered involuntarily, and Pike groaned. ‘In that case…’

Pike strained sideways beneath him, stretching out an arm to reach the bedside table; catching on through the haze of his lust, McCoy squirmed upward to help, their fingers fumbling together to retrieve the lube, harsh breaths marking every impatient second until Pike’s slippery fingers worked their way past the tight rim of his opening. McCoy groaned deeply, hips tilting back onto Pike’s hand, brow sweating into his chest.

‘That’s it…’ Pike’s voice was tight with exertion, blindly fucking McCoy with three fingers while his other hand spread his buttocks wider. ‘Such a good, dirty boy, so good at taking it…’

Biting back a frustrated whine, McCoy pushed up on his forearms, panting as he stared down into Pike’s rapt face. ‘Had lots of practice,’ he rasped breathlessly. ‘Too much time with just my hands for company…’ He let out a startled gasp as that spark in Pike’s eye sharpened and his fingers curled deep inside McCoy, teasing off his prostate.

‘Just your hands?’ Pike asked, eyes narrowed. ‘You and those long lovely fingers, fingering this ass all by yourself?’

‘Yeah…’ He arched his back and spread his thighs wider. ‘Just me, my fingers… sometimes the vibrator…’

Pike growled, gave his prostate another torturous prod before slipping out until only his fingertips held him spread open. ‘Next time, you’re showing me that,’ he vowed, bucking his hips and pushing the head of his cock at McCoy’s gaping hole. ‘Next time, I want to watch…’

All he could do was nod emphatically, breathlessly agreeing to anything Pike wanted if it meant a next time of this. He pushed upright as Pike flexed his hips, trying to ease into the greater depth and girth of being filled like this, shuddering hard as he sank all the way down, whimpering sharply as he tried rolling his hips into the overwhelming stretch pulsing at his insides.

‘Easy…’ The hard abdominal muscles beneath McCoy’s shaking fingers clenched, Pike curling himself upright, pressing chest to chest and circling a protective arm around his lower back. ‘Hold on, beautiful, I’ve got you…’ Open-mouthed kisses trailed distractingly over his arched throat while Pike wordlessly nudged his quivering legs to wrap around him, a move that made Pike’s cock settle impossibly deeper inside him but he bit his lip and clung tighter to Pike’s body.

‘That’s it… just like that…’ Pike tipped his head back down, lapping delicately at McCoy’s panting lips. From this close, Pike’s pale eyes were dark with arousal, pupils dilating into blue. ‘You feel so damn good… so beautiful,’ he whispered, and McCoy stifled his embarrassment by claiming Pike’s lips with a needy kiss, plunging his tongue as deep as Pike was penetrating him in turn and exploring every hot contour of his mouth. Pike moaned into his lips, hands roaming everywhere at once and driving McCoy to return every touch, test every inch of Pike’s hardened body within reach, hungrily stroking every part of him that elicited one of those deliciously low and dirty moans.

The endless flow of groping and kissing and biting was intoxicating, firing lust through his bloodstream and making him throb around the shape of Pike’s own arousal inside him. The instinctive movement of their joined bodies made his cock brush tantalizingly over McCoy’s prostate, nowhere near enough to slake his need. He groaned raggedly when Pike’s hands drifted lower, one palming the damp head of his dick while the fingers of the other traced down to where they fitted together so tight. ‘Darling…’

‘Mmm… yes…’ Pike moaned into his neck, rubbed his cock more firmly, making McCoy’s eyes roll back in his head.

‘Oh, fuck… please…’ He bucked hard in Pike’s lap, fingers bruising into the other man’s shoulders. ‘Please, darling,’ he purred, ‘I… oh, God, I need…’

‘God, _yes_.’ All the breath was knocked from McCoy’s body for the sheer force with which Pike drove him down onto his back and began fucking into him with relentlessly powerful thrusts that left him reeling, holding on for dear life and nearly blind with ecstasy.

‘Took you long enough,’ he managed breathlessly, huffing a delighted laugh when Pike growled and punched his hips harder, sending a sharp lance of pleasure up his spine.

‘Wanted you to beg me before I fucked your gorgeous brains out,’ Pike snarled back, grappling for McCoy’s hands and pinning them down to the mattress as he lost himself in the heat of McCoy’s body, rutting fast in the cradle of McCoy’s legs wrapped around his restless hips. He felt and watched Pike’s orgasm crash through his lean, sweat-glistened body, gasping loud through his lips and rushing thick and warm inside him.

It was probably one of the most damn breathtaking things he had ever seen.

Pike exhaled shakily and pulled out too soon for McCoy’s liking, only to make him shout and arch off the bed when he swept downward and took McCoy’s cock into his mouth. With their hands still firmly entangled, Pike sucked him impossibly deep and oh, _fuck_ , swallowed tight around the head of his cock and he tried to pull back before asphyxiating his new lover but Pike held still and hummed deeply as McCoy came helplessly down his throat, pulling back so that the last heavy spurts of his release pulsed thick upon his tongue.

Though clearly exhausted, Pike fumbled for the edge of his twisted sheets before collapsing alongside McCoy’s spent body, lazily covering them against the chill of the room. Too breathless for words, McCoy spoke his thanks by nuzzling his warmth up against Pike’s side, sweated brow slipping over his equally damp shoulder. Even beneath the thrum of his bone-deep satisfaction, desire throbbed as hot as ever in his veins, lust-numbed mind racing with every dirty suggestion Pike had muttered in his ear, the even dirtier things he had yet to admit out loud. Having barely scratched the surface of Christopher Pike, he craved more, craved everything lurking in those deceptively kind cornflower eyes.

First, however, McCoy felt he had to ask. ‘I interrupted you,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Shouldn’t you get back to…?’

‘No.’ Pike’s arm tightened around his chest, and McCoy shivered at the warmth of his breath snuffling into his neck. ‘No, I’ve already let you walk away from me twice. Damned if I’m making it a third.’

He sighed his relief to hear Pike echo his own thoughts so accurately. ‘It’s, er…’ He craned his head up off the pillow to squint at the glowing chronometer on Pike’s bedside table. ‘It’s still the afternoon,’ he observed sheepishly.

‘Good.’ Moist lips trailed down over his shoulder and down to his chest. ‘Gives us plenty of time.’ McCoy felt Pike’s entire body hesitate against him. ‘Unless you needed to be somewhere, of course…’ he added regretfully.

McCoy thought of his empty dorm room and his banishment from the hospital with a sudden rush of gratitude. ‘Nope.’

‘Hungry?’

‘Mm, no.’ Not for food, anyway.

‘I’ll order us something in later,’ Pike promised, and McCoy grinned at the ceiling.

‘Whatever will we do until then?’

Pike smirked back at him, and slid down beneath the sheets.

  


\+ + +

He woke up the next morning sluggish and sore, his sleep-heavy limbs askew across a bed that felt far too wide to be his dorm bunk. Grumbling tiredly, McCoy pushed upright, felt the shift of blankets baring his belly and pooling around his naked hips. The mattress felt both steady and soft beneath his tangled legs, far too luxurious to be his own. McCoy scrubbed a hand through his disheveled hair while he glanced around the strange room, breath catching to realize that he was being watched.

Pike – _Christopher_ , his mind attempted hopefully – leaned leisurely in the threshold of the bedroom, half-clad in loose-fitting pajama bottoms worn thin with countless years of use. The coffee mug clasped close to his bare chest – bright blue, emblazoned with the caricature of some Andorian sporting mascot – added to the disarmingly domestic image he presented, sleepy eyes fond as they moved freely over McCoy’s body seated in a nest on his bed.

‘Hey there,’ he greeted softly.

‘Hey.’ McCoy tugged absently at the blanket barely covering him. ‘Uh, what time is it…?’

‘Just gone 0930,’ Pike answered, a touch ruefully and with good reason – that was downright lazy by Starfleet standards. ‘There’s coffee,’ he tipped his mug slightly to indicate, ‘still fresh if you wanted… and eggs.’ His eyes darted back towards the kitchen, uncharacteristically anxious. ‘Real eggs, not replicated. I mean, they’re not made yet, but I could make us some eggs, if you were hungry, or…’

‘Chris.’ McCoy relished the way that one syllable, drawn out slow and sure, made Pike fall silent, lips still parted. _Yes,_ he decided, it would definitely have to be Chris.

‘Yes.’ The word was approval rather than a question, eyes widening as they watched McCoy clamber to his feet and leave the stray blankets behind as he crossed the room, uncaring of his naked and well-used body.

‘You want me to stay for breakfast?’

‘Yes.’ Chris dropped his gaze into his coffee, something baffling pulled at his mouth. ‘For breakfast. Or…’

He cleared his throat to cover a lack of words. McCoy stepped closer, drawn to the familiarity of the other man’s silent uncertainty. ‘Or…?’ he prompted.

‘Or…’ Pike glanced up again, eyes hardened with daring. ‘Or longer. If you want.’

‘How long?’ Even with his heart pounding so fast it nearly stopped up his larynx, McCoy kept his voice pitched low, almost drawling with false ease. ‘A couple of hours? A day?’

Pike tilted his head, gaze sliding barely perceptibly down McCoy’s naked body. ‘Academy’s on leave for seven days.’

His last step forward pushed him tight to Pike’s body, pushed them both hard to the wall. Fingers reverent on the angles of his face, McCoy tilted him into a morning kiss, tasting deeply of the coffee and sex and warmth that was his Chris.

He stayed for seven days.


End file.
